Music
by Grasspaw
Summary: Modern AU. Seven short stories about each member of the band learned to play their instruments.
1. Beat

**Well, what can I say? I'm tired. This is really kind of completely plotless, but one of my friends and I were imagining what the Gaang would do if they weren't fighting a war, and said friend was like - "Oh, they'd totally be in a band." We then spent the next hour arguing over who would play what instrument :D ****So this is a series of one shots about how all of the characters started playing their respective instruments. This one's about ZUKO! WOOT! And it's written in a long, rambling, confusing style because it's midnight and I DON'T CARE. **

Zuko didn't know what had happened until later. He just knew that one minute he was in a corner and his father was screaming at him and he was bleeding and where was his mother- And the next he was in a hospital bed.

White walls white ceiling white sheets white skin... "You lost a lot of blood," the social worker's voice said, the words still echoing in his brain two months later. Gentle. Caring.

She lied, just like the rest of them. She said he was going to be okay. Was he okay?

Uncle Iroh examined the dent in the car door. Zuko had been holding a rock when he whacked it. "We need to get you something else to hit, nephew."

They tried karate. The instructor told him not to come back. They tried soccer. The coach threatened to get a restraining order. Too violent, they said. Doesn't interact well with others.

Well, what did they _expect?_

Zuko ran out of ideas and was reduced to throwing rocks at trees in the backyard and trying to breathe like the therapist said. Anger still boiled just beneath the surface, and beneath the anger, fear and shame and sadness and every other negative emotion in existence. He cried himself to sleep and woke up screaming from nightmares an hour later.

Almost a month after being kicked off the soccer team, he came downstairs in the morning and found a drum kit in the living room.

"I thought if you were going to hit something, I might as well get some pleasant noise out of it," his uncle said when Zuko asked. "No money for a teacher, though. You'll have to figure it out yourself."

So Zuko did. Every day he'd sit down and figure out simple beats, watching videos on youtube and taking out his anger on the instrument. He wasn't entirely sure if it counted as 'pleasant noise' - in fact, he was rather certain it didn't, the way he banged away at it - but Uncle would just smile and nod every time Zuko played, so he kept at it.

He played passionately, almost violently, beating on the drums the way his father had beat him, until one day he was surprised to discover that wait a minute, he was actually good at this. And, years later, he was even more surprised to discover that he wasn't angry anymore.

He realized it when he was walking onto the stage towards the drums - new and shiny and with the band name printed across the bass drum - and hundreds of fans were screaming and Katara, Sokka, Suki, Aang, and Toph - friends from Atla Music College and now his fellow bandmembers - were grinning and waving at the audience. When he raised his drumsticks in an informal salute and grinned, he could have sworn he saw several girls faint. Looking more closely at the audience, he could see several people with fake scars and Zuko t-shirts, and he realized with a sudden jolt that the anger was gone, replaced by a much more agreeable feeling: Happiness. He lived for these moments.

And for the first time in years, his playing was not fueled by rage, or fear, or hatred. He played because he enjoyed it, and the sounds of their fans cheering and clapping and stomping their feet after his drum solo were so loud he thought he would go deaf.

And he loved it.


	2. Melody

**Here's Toph's bit. The idea for this came from the guy on American Idol a few years back whose name escapes me at the moment, but I remember he was blind and played piano, and I could see Toph's parents wanting her to do the same thing.**

Toph was sick of it. She was sick of being her parents' little porcelain baby doll to dress up and play with and show off. "Look at our accomplished daughter! She's blind and she can play piano like a master! Did we mention she's only seven?" They had started her on her lessons from the time she could toddle, all Mozart and Bach and other classical music.

The first chance she got she had one of the maids go out and buy her a book of real songs (and use a pen to raise the notes up so she could actually read them), the kind of stuff her parents didn't know she listened to. Barlowgirl, Casting Crowns. Nothing too wild.

It wasn't until she was around thirteen and started listening to bands like Flyleaf and Skillet that her parents fired the maid who had been getting the music for her, leaving Toph music-less. So she learned to listen to a song, pick out the piano, and teach herself to play by ear. It took a while to do, and then she went to her parents to ask for a keyboard instead of a baby grand like she currently had in her room.

She used her most diplomatic arguments, because of course they said no right away. No way was any daughter of theirs going to play _keyboard._That was a mockery of the almost-sacred music that was piano.

But it would be more portable, she said. Easier to take with her if they ever had to travel somewhere. Her parents didn't want her to fall out of practice, did they? And think of what she could learn from playing a different style of piano!

They could refuse their baby girl nothing - except freedom, of course, but that was another matter entirely. Toph was _blind_ and Toph was _delicate_and Toph was playing heavy metal in her bedroom late at night. She didn't need the lights on to play, and she had memorized the feel of the keyboard - the finest money could buy - so that her parents never knew, as long as she kept the volume down.

Seventeen years old and entering Atla Music College with her trusty old keyboard in her hand and a backpack on her back - she had refused anything else her parents had tried to give her, stating that she wanted to be Toph not the-heir-to-the-Bei-Fong-fortune - any and every promise she had ever made to her parents concerning her music flew out of her head, never to be heard from again.

At least, never to be heard from until five years later, when Aang led her to her keyboard and the fans screamed her name and she rolled her eyes at them and played the melody for thier newest hit. None of the crazy stuff she had taught herself years ago; no, she used the techniques her parents had absolutely forced her to learn and that she had hated for so long.

And now?

She loved it.


	3. Lyric

**Here's Katara's bit. Fair warning, these get progressively shorter as they go on. Anyways, the inspiration for this actually came from my story "Sing" about Mako; I figured Katara would do the same thing. Here go.**

The world fell apart when Katara was six. Screaming and crying and trying to convince everybody that Mom was not dead, she was just sleeping, she would wake up but only if they didn't put the coffin in the ground, she experienced pain like no child should. She and Sokka comforted each other at night and fell asleep curled up underneath a giant quilt on the couch more nights that she could count. It shouldn't have been like that, it should have been their father comforting them, but it wasn't. His job had always made him travel, going on long business trips to faraway places, and after Kya's death he was gone even more.

Katara didn't tell anyone, but she knew why he left. She saw the way he looked at her, grief and pain and _anger_in his eyes. She looked like her mother.

Gram Gram tried her best, but she couldn't be a mother and father to them, and as Katara grew older, she clung to the one thing she had from her mother besides an old necklace: Her songs. Mom's voice singing a lullaby as a ghostly hand brushed Katara's hair, Mom's voice singing folk songs while she waltzed around the kitchen with her daughter on her hip, Mom's voice singing along to the radio and interrupted when a car smashed into theirs.

Katara's voice trying to mimic her mother's.

She felt close to her Mom when she was singing the familiar old tunes, clutching her necklace. She kept the singing to herself, hiding in her room and clutching the necklace and crying. Her father entered her bedroom one day while she was singing; she stopped and stared at him.

"We might as well get you some proper lessons," he said, staring at the floor. She gasped in amazement. Proper lessons? He was going to get her a voice teacher? "You sound like your mother." Her heart sank, but then he added gently, "You have a very nice voice, Katara."

She almost cried she was so happy. Her teacher was amazing; stern and unbending but caring. He taught her everything she knew.

When she was twelve she started writing songs, letting out all the grief and anger she could express no other way. And when she was twenty-four and found herself suddenly the lead singer of a band, it was her music that they played and her words that they sang and the pain she felt at her mother's death and the anger at her father's semi-abandonment faded away.

And she loved it.


	4. Rhythm

**Here's Aang! His story is actually based off of my mom's cousin, who can do the exact same thing I have Aang doing here. I figured since, as the Avatar, he can bend all four elements, as a normal kid he could play a ton of instruments. Also, in the show it portrays as being a tiny bit of a slacker and susceptible to his own awesomeness (but who isn't susceptible to Aang's awesomeness?). Anyways, here it is.**

Aang was twelve when his parents died in a fire, and with no relatives to go to he was put in foster care and shunted from home to home until he was fifteen. A dozen different homes in three years, and they all blurred together until he could barely separate one from the other in his mind. A few stuck out, of course. There was the one where the little neighbor girl had a crush on him, the one where the old lady tried to feed him cat food (he stayed with her for all of two days), the one where the two older boys beat him up for fun.

Then there was the one where he was "discovered." At least, that's what Gyatso, his foster father, said. Aang had always known, but he had been in so many different homes in the past years that no one had noticed the fact that he could play almost any instrument he laid his hands on. He just understood the noises the instruments made and how to coax these sounds out of them. He knew what he was doing without any help, just understood. Gyatso found him after he had kidnapped Kuzon's guitar - Kuzon and Bumi were two other boys that Gyatso had adopted, both a year older than Aang. Kuzon took guitar lessons, and Aang had to hold in his laughter every time he showed them what he had learned. Aang needed no lessons.

And he had to admit he was a little - okay, really a lot - prideful when Gyatso found him and Aang explained how he'd always been able to figure instruments out by just holding them. Guitar was his favorite, though, guitar and singing. Kuzon was resentful that his new brother (Gyatso had finished up the adoption process a month after discovering Aang's talent) was suddenly so talented, and Aang had lorded it over him until Gyatso found out about it. He had been severely chastised and grounded for a month.

Though apologetic, Aang could not get over his certainty that, as a musical prodigy, the world would simply be handed to him on a platter; as it was, he would have never completed high school if Gyatso hadn't been on his back about it constantly. Even so, he was amazed to find that, with his test scores, only a handful of colleges would even accept him, and none would give him any sort of scolarship, musical or otherwise.

None, accept some tiny college halfway across the country called Atla Music College. He was accepted, and he had to work two jobs to be able to pay for tuition. That, on top of band practice with his new friends, and he almost made himself sick from exhaustion.

Still, when he was twenty-two and picked up his guitar after leading Toph to her keyboard, he had to admit that all the hard work had paid off.

And he loved it.


	5. Harmony

**Suki Suki Suki! This is my brother's story, translated into Suki-ness. Of course, he left off playing violing a while ago, but whatever. Enjoy.**

Suki grew up hearing the sounds of a violin; her father was a talented player. As a young girl she used to sit on the floor and watch in awe as he expertly drew the bow across the strings, making a music that she adored. She loved the shape of the instrument, the strong, decisive, yet gentle movements, the sounds it produced.

And she hated the style.

Too slow, too boring, too... bleah. She would have loved to see how the violin could be used in more fast-paced music, but her father only knew slow airs, and she could find no one that knew anything else.

When she was eight she sneaked into her father's room while he was watching TV and took his violin off the shelf. She placed it on her shoulder the way he always did, positioned her fingers on the neck and pressed down random strings, and then stood there for a solid minute trying to convince herself to just do it already. If she could just move the bow across the strings more quickly, or maybe play different notes that Daddy did... Taking a deep breath, she gently drew the bow across the strings... And flinched when it made a noise like a dying cow.

And from behind her, laughter. She whirled around, and there was her father, leaning against the doorframe and laughing hysterically. "Oh!" she gasped. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I shouldn't have..."

He waved his hand dismissively and, still chuckling, said, "Well, I guess one of my girls had to play violin, and you did seem the most likely to want to learn." He walked forward and took the violin from her. "Hold it like this."

And she learned how to play. But still, she knew that something was missing. She played for a year and a half before she gave up on playing classical music and began to stop practicing, bored with what her father had taught her.

Until, one day, a friend mentioned a song called "Devil Went Down to Georgia."

"You should look it up on youtube, Suki. You play violin, don't you?"

So she did. And she sat at the computer with her jaw almost touching the keyboard, listening and staring in amazement as Charlie Daniels showed her what the fiddle was. At ten years of age, she felt as though someone had just handed her the moon she was so overjoyed. _This_was what violin could be, and what - to her - it should be.

She asked her father if he knew anyone that could teach her to play fiddle rather than violin; as it turned out, he did, and that person was himself. He knew a surprising amount about this different style, but as he himself had always preferred the classics he had not played any fiddle-style songs in years. Suki begged him to teach her, and he did, everything he knew.

Sixteen years later, she jumped onto the stage and clapped her hands over her head as she walked to her spot, screaming along with the audience. And when she picked up her electric violin - metallic green and shaped like the letter _S_- and fitted the instrument underneath her chin and fitted the music to fit the song, she sent up a silent thank you to her father - and Charlie Daniels.

And she loved it.


	6. Tune

***Singsong voice* Sokka! I think this one is actually the shortest... But yeah, I just saw Sokka playing bass because he's so chill and harmonica because he's so awesome. Can't you?**

Sokka made an important decision when he was a toddler, when Katara was just born and stealing all the attention. He decided that he was never going to let his sister beat him in anything. He was going to be faster and smarter and stronger and all around better. It wasn't that he felt he had to put Katara in her place or anything, or that he was jealous, it was just that he was the oldest and so he had to be more outstanding.

So when Katara started taking singing lessons when she was eleven and he was thirteen, he decided that he was going to learn to play an instrument. Nothing too hard, of course; he wasn't going to overexert himself if she was only learning how to sing. He was tempted to ask for singing lessons also, but then it might seem like he was copying her - which he most definitely was _not._Besides, he couldn't sing anyways.

Guitar seemed pretty cool, but bass guitar had two fewer strings, so it was the obvious choice. He spent hours practicing, until he had thick callouses on the tips of his fingers. Around the time he finished bass lessons, Katara started writing her own songs. So, of course, Sokka had to learn to do something else. He was wondering about it while he was wandering around the city with his friend Haru when, lo and behold, there was a street musician absolutely blowing away passersby with his mad skills... on the harmonica. Sokka bought a harmonica and a how-to book that same day, much to Haru's amusement. Sokka ignored him and taught himself to play.

And, when he and Katara were accepted into Atla Music College - _"Dad, I've graduated 'real' college and Katara's gotten two years in, let us go, please?"_- and me met Zuko, Aang, Suki, and Toph, he knew that the hours spent with bleeding fingers from playing his bass for hours and lack of breath from practicing harmonica incessantly were totally worth it.

So as their fans screamed while they walked on stage, he let out a wolf-whistle and stuck his fisted in the air, then started playing.

And he loved it.


	7. Music

**And here's where it all... *Fanfare* comes together! No, I don't know why every chapter ends it "And _ loved it." They just do. Anyhow, I'm going to sleep now. See ya.**

The fans were all talking and laughing and shouting, screaming when someone walked on stage and groaning in disappointment when it was just a technician or a camera guy. Suddenly, all lights in the building shut off, and a steady roar rose up from the crowd, punctuated by the screams of over-excited young women. Spotlights flashed in every direction, blinding people, but it was still possible to make out the six forms walking onto the stage, and the noise level in the room rose substantially.

The lights stopped flashing after a few moments and pointed towards the stage, making it possible to see the people better. One girl, her brown hair cut short, heavy makeup on her face, wearing a forest green tank top, jean shorts, and numerous bangles on her arms, jumped up and down and clapped her hands over her head as she made her way towards the back of the stage, screaming along with the audience; she picked up her violin and bow in one hand and waved them over her head, laughing and shouting and living it up.

Another brunette gave her a fond smile as he slipped his bass guitar on; he pumped his fist in the air and threw back his head, wolf-whistling, at the same time his girlfriend began waving her violin around. The sides of the man's head were shaved, and the hair on top of his head was pulled back in a short, tight ponytail. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt with a large blue flannel shirt over it, as well as dark blue jeans and his signature white stone necklace.

A second girl, also brunette, shook her head at her brother's antics and waved at the audience members, winking and shouting greetings that were lost in the noise; she hadn't picked up the microphone yet. Her hair was in its usual braid down her back, strands of hair colored green and blue and purple, shiny, neon colors that glinted in the light, but they had nothing on the light reflected off the sequins of her blue halter-top. She was a walking disco ball, all lit up and dazzling. Large gold hoops hung from her ears and she was wearing her ever-present black and blue necklace, as well as a black-and-white checked belt over her low-rise skinny jeans.

A second young man with dark, shaggy hair raised his drumsticks in an almost mocking salute to the audience, giving them a lazy grin to acknowledge their adoration. The brunette girl pouted; he blew a teasing kiss in her direction and continued on his way to the drums, twirling one stick around his fingers. The sleeves of his tight red shirt were rolled up past his elbows, and his black cargoes were too long, dragging on the floor and almost tripping him. A large, jagged scar, the result of some mysterious accident that only his close friends and family knew about, covered the left side of his face.

A third girl was on the stage, her black hair - bangs dyed green - falling in her face and her eyes staring unseeingly as another man helped her to the keyboard. She was wearing a short camo dress, knee high green socks, combat boots, and a smirk. When this third man placed her hands on the keyboard, she rolled her pale green eyes, though she did smile a little when he squeezed her elbow as he turned and made his way back to center stage.

This man grinned and pulled his black beanie with the blue arrow down lower so that it covered his eyebrows, and he jumped carelessly over the pile of chords in his way, his unbuttoned yellow shirt flaring out behind to show the band name printed on his t-shirt underneath. He grabbed his guitar off the stand and whipped it on at the same moment the brunette girl next to him grabbed her microphone and raised her fist in the air.

"Hello, Omashu! Are you ready to rock?"

The audience screamed.

And they loved it.


End file.
